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Write a Book for Me: Story of Marguerite Henry (World Writers)
by David R. CollinsFor over half a century the stories of Marguerite Henry have taken readers on journeys through space and time, from the barrier islands off the Atlantic coast, to the Grand Canyon of Arizona, and from eighteenth century to nineteenth century America. Every trip through the books Marguerite Henry book is an adventure that lives on in the reader's memory long after the final page is read. This warm-hearted biography is a welcome introduction to Marguerite Henry. It is also a great place to learn how this little sister in hand-me-down clothes grew into one of the world's most beloved writers.
Write Away: One Novelist's Approach To Fiction And The Writing Life
by Elizabeth GeorgeElizabeth George is one of the most successful writers of crime fiction in the world. All her novels have appeared on bestseller lists in the UK, USA and Australia and several of them have been adapted for television by the BBC as the Inspector Lynley Mysteries. She has also written a collection of short stories and edited two crime anthologies. Now she shares this wealth of experience with would-be novelists and with crime fiction fans. Drawing extensively on her own work, and that of other bestselling writers including Stephen King, Harper Lee, Dennis Lehane and many others, she illustrates her points about plotting, characterisation and technique with great clarity. She also includes extracts from her own Journals - the diaries she keeps as she writes each of her novels - and these give us an unprecedented insight ino the creative mind, with all its highs and lows.
Write for Your Life
by Anna QuindlenIn this clarion call to pick up a pen and find yourself from &“one of our most astute chroniclers of modern life&” (The New York Times Book Review), #1 New York Times bestselling author Anna Quindlen shows us how anyone can write, and why everyone should. What really matters in life? What truly lasts in our hearts and minds? Where can we find community, history, humanity? In this lyrical new book, the answer is clear: through writing. This is a book for what Quindlen calls &“civilians,&” those who want to use the written word to become more human, more themselves. Write for Your Life argues that there has never been a more important time to stop and record what we are thinking and feeling. Using examples from past, present, and future—from Anne Frank to Toni Morrison, from love letters written after World War II to journal reflections from nurses and doctors today—Write for Your Life vividly illuminates the ways in which writing connects us to ourselves and to those we cherish. Drawing on her personal experiences not just as a writer but as a mother and daughter, Quindlen makes the case that recording our daily lives in writing is essential. When we write we not only look, we see; we not only react but reflect. Writing gives you something to hold onto in a changing world. &“To write the present,&” Quindlen says, &“is to believe in the future.&”
Write It When I'm Gone: Remarkable Off-the-Record Conversations with Gerald R. Ford
by Thomas M. DefrankIn an extraordinary series of private interviews, conducted over sixteen years with the stipulation that they not be released until after Ford's death, the thirty-eighth president of the United States reveals a profoundly different side of himself: funny, reflective, gossipy, strikingly candid--and the stuff of headlines. In 1974, award-winning journalist and author Thomas DeFrank, then a young correspondent for Newsweek, was interviewing Vice President Gerald R. Ford when Ford blurted out something astonishingly indiscreet related to the White House, came around his desk, grabbed DeFrank's tie, and told the reporter he could not leave the room until he promised not to publish it. "Write it when I'm dead," he said--and that agreement formed the basis for their relationship for the next thirty-two years. During that time, they talked frequently, but from 1991 to shortly before Ford's death in 2006, the interviews became something else--conversations between two men in which Ford talked in a way few presidents ever have. Here is the real Ford on his relationship with Richard Nixon (including the 1974 revelation that, in DeFrank's words, "will alter what history thinks it knows about the events that culminated in Ford's becoming president"); Ford's experiences on the Warren Commission; his complex relationships with Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter; his startling, never-before-disclosed discussions with Bill Clinton during the latter's impeachment process; his opinions about both Bush administrations, the Iraq war, and many contemporary political figures; and much more. Here also are unguarded personal musings: about key cultural events; his own life, history, and passions; his beloved wife, Betty; and the frustrations of aging. In all, it is an unprecedented book: illuminating, entertaining, surprising, heartwarming, and, in many ways, historic.
Write It When I'm Gone
by Thomas M. DefrankThe New York Times bestseller?and the candid voice of an American presidentIn 1974, Newsweek correspondent Thomas M. DeFrank was interviewing Gerald Ford when the Vice President blurted out something astonishingly indiscreet. He then extracted a promise not to publish it. ?Write it when I?m dead,? Ford said? and thus began a thirty-two-year relationship. During the last fifteen years of their conversations, Ford opened up to DeFrank, speaking in a way few presidents ever have. Here the award-winning journalist reveals these private talks, as Ford discusses his experiences with his fellow presidents, the Warren Commission, and his exchanges with Bill Clinton during the latter?s impeachment process. In addition, he shares his thoughts about both Bush administrations, the Iraq war, his beloved wife Betty, and the frustrations of aging. Write It When I?m Gone is not only a historical document but an unprecedented portrait of a president.
Write On, Mercy!: The Secret Life of Mercy Otis Warren
by Gretchen WoelfleGrowing up on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Mercy Otis Warren was fortunate to go to school with her brother. When she married Patriot James Warren, Mercy wrote in secret—poetry, plays, and about the events of her time. She wrote of the people she knew, including George Washington and John and Abigail Adams. It wasn’t until Mercy was older that her literary life became known, with the publication of her three-volume history of the American Revolution.
Write to Me: Letters from Japanese American Children to the Librarian They Left Behind
by Cynthia GradyA touching story about Japanese American children who corresponded with their beloved librarian while they were imprisoned in World War II internment camps.When Executive Order 9066 is enacted after the attack at Pearl Harbor, children's librarian Clara Breed's young Japanese American patrons are to be sent to prison camp. Before they are moved, Breed asks the children to write her letters and gives them books to take with them. Through the three years of their internment, the children correspond with Miss Breed, sharing their stories, providing feedback on books, and creating a record of their experiences. Using excerpts from children's letters held at the Japanese American National Museum, author Cynthia Grady presents a difficult subject with honesty and hope." A beautiful picture book for sharing and discussing with older children as well as the primary audience" — Booklist STARRED REVIEW"A touching tribute to a woman who deserves recognition" — Kirkus Reviews"[An] affecting introduction to a distressing chapter in U.S. history and a brave librarian who inspired hope" — Publisher's Weekly
Write Your Memoir
by Allan HunterDrawing from more than 25 years of literary know-how and modeled after a 15-week college course, this manual provides guidance for seekers wishing to delve further into self-exploration through writing. Extending beyond the idea that memoir writing intends to put past events into a more understandable current perspective, the guide maintains that keeping a document of one's life is actually the basis of a psychic process called "soul work," which manifests as a desire to experience the state of being alive to the fullest. This unusual approach to memoir writing aims to generate more honest and genuine results that come from inner needs rather than outer expectations. Intended to clarify a writer's developmental path, this resource emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and the need for dealing with difficult material that actually alters the writer in the process, resulting in significant growth of the soul.
The Writer as Migrant
by Ha JinHa Jin's journey from an uneducated soldier in the People's Liberation Army in China to a resident of the United States raises questions about language, migration, and the place of literature in a globalizing world.
A Writer of Our Time: The Life and Work of John Berger
by Joshua SperlingThe first intellectual biography of the life and work of John BergerJohn Berger was one of the most influential thinkers and writers of postwar Europe. As a novelist, he won the Booker prize in 1972, donating half his prize money to the Black Panthers. As a TV presenter, he changed the way we looked at art with Ways of Seeing. As a storyteller and political activist, he defended the rights and dignity of workers, migrants, and the oppressed around the world. “Far from dragging politics into art,” he wrote in 1953, “art has dragged me into politics.” He remained a revolutionary up to his death in January 2017.Built around a series of watersheds, at once personal and historical, A Writer of Our Time traces Berger’s development from his roots as a postwar art student and polemicist in the Cold War battles of 1950s London, through the heady days of the 1960s—when the revolutions were not only political but sexual and artistic—to Berger’s reinvention as a rural storyteller and the long hangover that followed the rise and fall of the New Left.Drawing on first-hand, unpublished interviews and archival sources only recently made available, Joshua Sperling digs beneath the moments of controversy to reveal a figure of remarkable complexity and resilience. The portrait that emerges is of a cultural innovator as celebrated as he was often misunderstood, and a writer increasingly driven as much by what he loved as by what he opposed. A Writer of Our Time brings the many faces of John Berger together, repatriating one of our great minds to the intellectual dramas of his and our time.
Writer of the Plains: A Story about Willa Cather
by Tom StreissguthA biography of the American author Willa Cather, emphasizing her youth and early career but covering all of her life.
Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures, 1935–1961
by Nicholas E. ReynoldsThe extraordinary untold story of Ernest Hemingway's dangerous secret life in espionageA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A finalist for the William E. Colby Military Writers' Award"IMPORTANT" (Wall Street Journal) • "FASCINATING" (New York Review of Books) • "CAPTIVATING" (Missourian)A riveting international cloak-and-dagger epic ranging from the Spanish Civil War to the liberation of Western Europe, wartime China, the Red Scare of Cold War America, and the Cuban Revolution, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy reveals for the first time Ernest Hemingway’s secret adventures in espionage and intelligence during the 1930s and 1940s (including his role as a Soviet agent code-named "Argo"), a hidden chapter that fueled both his art and his undoing. While he was the historian at the esteemed CIA Museum, Nicholas Reynolds, a longtime American intelligence officer, former U.S. Marine colonel, and Oxford-trained historian, began to uncover clues suggesting Nobel Prize-winning novelist Ernest Hemingway was deeply involved in mid-twentieth-century spycraft -- a mysterious and shocking relationship that was far more complex, sustained, and fraught with risks than has ever been previously supposed. Now Reynolds's meticulously researched and captivating narrative "looks among the shadows and finds a Hemingway not seen before" (London Review of Books), revealing for the first time the whole story of this hidden side of Hemingway's life: his troubling recruitment by Soviet spies to work with the NKVD, the forerunner to the KGB, followed in short order by a complex set of secret relationships with American agencies.Starting with Hemingway's sympathy to antifascist forces during the 1930s, Reynolds illuminates Hemingway's immersion in the life-and-death world of the revolutionary left, from his passionate commitment to the Spanish Republic; his successful pursuit by Soviet NKVD agents, who valued Hemingway's influence, access, and mobility; his wartime meeting in East Asia with communist leader Chou En-Lai, the future premier of the People's Republic of China; and finally to his undercover involvement with Cuban rebels in the late 1950s and his sympathy for Fidel Castro. Reynolds equally explores Hemingway's participation in various roles as an agent for the United States government, including hunting Nazi submarines with ONI-supplied munitions in the Caribbean on his boat, Pilar; his command of an informant ring in Cuba called the "Crook Factory" that reported to the American embassy in Havana; and his on-the-ground role in Europe, where he helped OSS gain key tactical intelligence for the liberation of Paris and fought alongside the U.S. infantry in the bloody endgame of World War II.As he examines the links between Hemingway's work as an operative and as an author, Reynolds reveals how Hemingway's secret adventures influenced his literary output and contributed to the writer's block and mental decline (including paranoia) that plagued him during the postwar years -- a period marked by the Red Scare and McCarthy hearings. Reynolds also illuminates how those same experiences played a role in some of Hemingway's greatest works, including For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea, while also adding to the burden that he carried at the end of his life and perhaps contributing to his suicide.A literary biography with the soul of an espionage thriller, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy is an essential contribution to our understanding of the life, work, and fate of one of America's most legendary authors.
A Writer Writes: A Memoir
by Stephen BirminghamA memoir by the New York Times–bestselling author and longtime chronicler of America&’s wealthy elite. Born in Connecticut in 1929 and educated at Williams College, Stephen Birmingham went on to create a literary niche with his numerous nonfiction works about New York&’s—and the nation&’s—upper class, particularly focusing on Jewish, African American, and Irish communities, as well as old-money WASPs. He also drew on his &“intimate knowledge of the private lives of the rich and famous&” to write bestselling works of fiction such as The Auerbach Will (The New York Times Book Review). In this book, Birmingham&’s attention is turned to his own life, both personal and professional, allowing us to learn about the man who created such compelling portraits of glittering parties, exclusive addresses, and, in some cases, rags-to-riches sagas that epitomize the American dream—and the American struggle. In the end, his story is as fascinating as those of the aristocrats he documented. &“When it comes to the folkways of the rich, the powerful, and the privileged, Stephen Birmingham knows what he&’s talking about.&” —Los Angeles Times
Writers: Their Lives and Works (DK History Changers)
by DKExplore the fascinating lives and loves of the greatest novelists, poets, and playwrights.From William Shakespeare and Jane Austen to Gabriel García Márquez and Toni Morrison, Writers explores more than 100 biographies of the world&’s greatest writers. Each featured novelist, playwright, or poet is introduced by a stunning portrait, followed by photography and illustrations of locations and artifacts important in their lives – along with pages from original manuscripts, first editions, and their correspondence. Trace the friendships, loves, and rivalries that inspired each individual and affected their writing, revealing insights into the larger-than-life characters, plots, and evocative settings that they created. You will also uncover details each writer&’s most famous pieces and understand the times and cultures they lived in – see how the world influenced them and how their works influenced the world.Writers introduces key ideas, themes, and literary techniques of each figure, revealing the imaginations and personalities behind some of the world's greatest novels, short stories, poems, and plays. A diverse variety of authors are covered, from the Middle Ages to present day, providing a compelling glimpse into the lives of the people behind the page.
Writers and Missionaries: Essays on the Radical Imagination
by Adam ShatzWhat does it mean to be a politically committed writer?Through a close reading of the lives and works of some of the greatest intellectuals of recent times, Adam Shatz asks: do writers have an ethical imperative to question injustice? How can one remain a dispassionate thinker when involved in the cut and thrust of politics? And, in an age of horror and crisis, what does it mean to be a committed writer?Shatz interrogates the major figures of twentieth and twenty-first century thought and finds within their lives and work the roots of our present intellectual and geopolitical situation. Charting the role of the committed intellectual through the work of Jean-Paul Sartre on the Algerian War and Edward Said's lifelong solidarity with the Palestinian people, to Fouad Ajami's role as the "native informant" for pro-intervention cause in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, alongside philosophers and critics Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida and Claude Lévi-Strauss and the novelists Michel Houllebecq and Richard Wright, each struggled to reconcile their writing and their politics, their thought and their commitments. Writers and Missionaries is an erudite and incisive work of intellectual elucidation and biographical enquiry that demands that we interrogate anew the relation of thought and action in the struggle for a more just world.
Writers and Their Notebooks
by Diana M. RaabPersonal reflections on the vital role of the notebook in creative writing, from Dorianne Laux, Sue Grafton, John Dufresne, Kyoko Mori, and more.This collection of essays by established professional writers explores how their notebooks serve as their studios and workshops—places to collect, to play, and to make new discoveries with language, passions, and curiosities. For these diverse writers, the journal also serves as an ideal forum to develop their writing voice, whether crafting fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. Some include sample journal entries that have since developed into published pieces. Through their individual approaches to keeping a notebook, the contributors offer valuable advice, personal recollections, and a hearty endorsement of the value of using notebooks to document, develop, and nurture a writer’s creative spark.
Writers and Their Pets: True Stories of Famous Authors and Their Animal Friends
by Kathleen KrullDiscover how animals influenced 20 of the world’s most beloved authors, from Charles Dickens to J.K. Rowling. Did you know that a dog saved Pablo Neruda’s life? Or that Mark Twain had a cat named Bambino? Or that Edgar Allen Poe wrote with a cat on his shoulders? Writers and Their Pets tells these stories and many more with playful full-color illustrations that will delight not only children, but also literary experts, history lovers, and animal enthusiasts. Each short chapter focuses on one author’s life, using simple and entertaining text to weave tales of the pets that affected the lives and works of these writers, with illustrative artwork sprinkled throughout each page. This title features a diverse list of both male and female international authors, spanning from the 19th to the 21st century, including Beatrix Potter, E.B. White, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Kurt Vonnegut, Maurice Sendak, Ernest Hemingway, and and more.
Writers Between the Covers
by Shannon Mckenna Schmidt Joni RendonAs this exploration of the scandalous love lives of famous authors shows, what happened off the page was often a lot spicier than what was written on it.
A Writer's Diary: Being Extracts From The Diary Of Virginia Woolf (Persephone Bks. #Vol. 98)
by Virginia WoolfIn her journals and writing exercises, this novelist &“comes to us with all the brilliance, perceptiveness, and restraint we could wish&” (Kirkus Reviews). From 1918 to 1941, even as she penned masterpiece upon masterpiece, Virginia Woolf kept a diary. She poured into it her thoughts, feelings, concerns, objections, interests, and disappointments—resulting in twenty-six volumes that give unprecedented insight into the mind of a genius. Collected here are the passages most relevant to her work and writing. From exercises in the craft of writing; to locations, events, and people that might inspire scenes in her fiction; to meditations on the work of others, A Writer&’s Diary takes a fascinating look at how one of the greatest novelists of the English language prepared, practiced, studied, and felt as she created literary history. Edited by and with a preface from her husband, Leonard Woolf, A Writer&’s Diary is a captivating must-read study for Woolf fans, aspiring writers, and anyone who has ever wanted a glimpse behind the curtain of brilliance.
A Writer's House in Wales
by Jan MorrisThrough an exploration of her country home in Wales, acclaimed travel writer Jan Morris discovers the heart of her fascinating country and what it means to be Welsh. Trefan Morys, Morris's home between the sea and mountains of the remote northwest corner of Wales, is the 18th-century stable block of her former family house nearby. Surrounding it are the fields and outbuildings, the mud, sheep, and cattle of a working Welsh farm. She regards this modest building not only as a reflection of herself and her life, but also as epitomizing the small and complex country of Wales, which has defied the world for centuries to preserve its own identity. Morris brilliantly meditates on the beams and stone walls of the house, its jumbled contents, its sounds and smells, its memories and inhabitants, and finally discovers the profoundest meanings of Welshness.
Writers in America: The Four Seasons of Success
by Budd SchulbergStories of twentieth-century American literary giants, by the man who was their friend, peer, and confidant When he was introduced to F. Scott Fitzgerald as a potential partner on a screenplay, novelist and scriptwriter Budd Schulberg was surprised the author was still alive. In Schulberg&’s view, the pressures of success and the public&’s merciless judgment had destroyed Fitzgerald&’s talent early in his career—a situation that is arguably typical for many of America&’s great literary geniuses. In Writers in America, Schulberg shares memories and insights from his relationships with authors such as Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Nathaneal West, and Sinclair Lewis, as well as brilliant writers who never attained the success and recognition they deserved, such as Thomas Heggen. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Budd Schulberg including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author&’s estate.
Writers In Paris: Literary Lives in the City of Light
by David BurkeNo city has attracted so much literary talent, launched so many illustrious careers, or produced such a wealth of enduring literature as Paris. From the 15th century through the 20th, poets, novelists, and playwrights, famed for both their work and their lives, were shaped by this enchanting locale. From natives such as Molière, Genet, and Anaïs Nin, to expats like Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, and Gertrude Stein, author David Burke follows hundreds of writers through Paris's labyrinthine streets, inviting readers on his grand tour. Unique in scope and approach, Writers in Paris crosses from Right Bank to Left and on to the Ile de la Cité as it explores the alleyways and haunts frequented by the world's most storied writers. Burke focuses not only on their writing but on their passions, ecstasies, obsessions, and betrayals. Equally appealing to Francophiles and serious readers, this engaging book includes maps and more than 100 evocative photographs.
A Writer's Life
by Gay TaleseThe inner workings of a writer's life, the interplay between experience and writing, are brilliantly recounted by a master of the art. Gay Talese now focuses on his own life--the zeal for the truth, the narrative edge, the sometimes startling precision, that won accolades for his journalism and best-sellerdom and acclaim for his revelatory books about The New York Times (The Kingdom and the Power), the Mafia (Honor Thy Father), the sex industry (Thy Neighbor's Wife), and, focusing on his own family, the American immigrant experience (Unto the Sons). How has Talese found his subjects? What has stimulated, blocked, or inspired his writing? Here are his amateur beginnings on his college newspaper; his professional climb at The New York Times; his desire to write on a larger canvas, which led him to magazine writing at Esquire and then to books. We see his involvement with issues of race from his student days in the Deep South to a recent interracial wedding in Selma, Alabama, where he once covered the fierce struggle for civil rights. Here are his reflections on the changing American sexual mores he has written about over the last fifty years, and a striking look at the lives--and their meaning--of Lorena and John Bobbitt. He takes us behind the scenes of his legendary profile of Frank Sinatra, his writings about Joe DiMaggio and heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson, and his interview with the head of a Mafia family.But he is at his most poignant in talking about the ordinary men and women whose stories led to his most memorable work. In remarkable fashion, he traces the history of a single restaurant location in New York, creating an ethnic mosaic of one restaurateur after the other whose dreams were dashed while a successor's were born. And as he delves into the life of a young female Chinese soccer player, we see his consuming interest in the world in its latest manifestation.In these and other recollections and stories, Talese gives us a fascinating picture of both the serendipity and meticulousness involved in getting a story. He makes clear that every one of us represents a good one, if a writer has the curiosity to know it, the diligence to pursue it, and the desire to get it right.Candid, humorous, deeply impassioned--a dazzling book about the nature of writing in one man's life, and of writing itself.From the Hardcover edition.
A Writer's Notebook (Vintage International)
by W. Somerset MaughamFilled with keen observations, autobiographical notes, and the seeds of many of Maugham's greatest works,A Writer's Notebookis a unique and exhilarating look into a great writer's mind at work. From nearly five decades, Somerset Maugham recorded an intimate journal. In it we see the budding of his incomparable vision and his remarkable career as a writer. Covering the years from his time as a youthful medical student in London to a seasoned world traveler around the world, it is playful, sharp witted, and always revealing. Undoubtedly one of his most significant works,A Writer's Notebookis a must for Maugham fans and anyone interested in the creative process.
Writers on the Spectrum
by Julie BrownFrom Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale characters to Lewis Carroll's Wonderland and Emily Dickinson's poetic imagery, the writings and lives of some of the world's most celebrated authors indicate signs of autism and Asperger's Syndrome. Through analysis of biographies, autobiographies, letters and diaries, Professor Julie Brown identifies literary talents who display characteristics of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and uncovers the similarities in their writing that suggest atypical, autistic brains. Providing close readings of authors' works, Brown explores writing processes, content, theme, structure and writing style to reveal the underlying autistic traits that have influenced their writing. The book provides an overview of ASD and common threads in autistic writing followed by an illuminating exploration of how these threads are evident in the literature of both well-known and lesser known authors. This groundbreaking study of autism in literature will be of interest to anyone with a professional or personal interest in literature or the autistic mind.