Greetings from Amazon.com Delivers Books for Writers Editor, Jane Steinberg FEATURED IN THIS E-MAIL: * "You Can Make It Big Writing Books" by Jeff Herman * "A Writer's Book of Days" by Judy Reeves * "Delicious Imaginations" edited by Sarah Griffiths and Kevin J. Kehrwald * "Spread the Word" by William Safire * "Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Allusions" by Elizabeth Webber and Mike Feinsilber "You Can Make It Big Writing Books: A Top Agent Shows You How to Develop a Million-Dollar Bestseller" by Jeff Herman http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0761513620/entertainmentsit If your goal is a Pulitzer, don't look here. But if your aspirations include wealth, bestsellerdom, and an appearance on Oprah(R), "You Can Make It Big Writing Books" can help. The majority of the book comprises author and literary agent Jeff Herman's profiles of more than 60 top-selling authors. While the profiles quickly begin to sound formulaic--the authors all seem to have been asked the same questions-- there is a lot to learn from this group of confident, successful self-promoters: mainly that writing may be an art form, but, as Carmen Renee Berry says, "publishing is a business." Some of the best--and funniest--tips come from Ralph Roberts. Roberts recommends autographing books at every bookstore you can (it makes it more difficult for the store to return them to the publisher) and giving the pilot a copy of your book every time you fly. "It's awesome," says Roberts, "to hear the pilot announce: 'We have Ralph Roberts, the world's greatest salesperson, on board.'" "A Writer's Book of Days: A Spirited Companion & Lively Muse for the Writing Life" by Judy Reeves http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1577311000/entertainmentsit Musicians practice. Athletes practice. And so, too, argues Judy Reeves, should writers practice. Her "Writer's Book of Days" provides a "writing prompt" for each day of the year, and then some: "Write about a time someone said yes"; "Write about leaving"; "Something seemed different." The more you practice, says Reeves, the more you write. And writing from a prompt, she adds, is like "someone provid[ing] the music when you want to dance." The prompts are the backbone of this book, but its pages are fleshed out with advice, inspiration, quotations from writers, encouragement, and a profusion of literary tidbits. Write from the sense, Reeves recommends. Audition words. Take risks. And when all else fails, amuse yourself with these astonishing tidbits from literary lives: T.S. Eliot, we learn, preferred writing with a head cold; Flaubert kept his lover's slippers and mittens in his desk drawer; and Friedrich von Schiller liked invoking his muse by sniffing rotten apples. "Delicious Imaginations: Conversations with Contemporary Writers" edited by Sarah Griffiths and Kevin J. Kehrwald http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1557531242/entertainmentsit "As Samuel Johnson observed," writes Henry Hughes in his introduction to "Delicious Imaginations," "questioning is not the most polite mode of conversation. But hot answers make it worth the risk." Graduate students, typically interested neither in the cult of celebrity nor in the posturing of success, seem uniquely qualified to get hot answers from their subjects. These 15 "conversations"-- between grad students and such contemporary writers as Gerald Stern, Catherine Bowman, Rick Bass, and Russell Banks--were culled from the first 10 years of Purdue University's Sycamore Review. All kinds of fascinating literary byways are explored here, but perhaps the hottest answers involve the role of M.F.A. programs, and academia in general, in the lives of contemporary writers. Michael Martone laments the fact that writing programs do not address "the consequences of their existence." Larry Brown claims that "the only thing an M.F.A. will give you is the ability to go out and teach creative writing." Denise Levertov calls M.F.A. programs "disastrous. They've taken people far from the concept of poetry as a vocation and turned it so much into poetry as a career." And Charles Simic advises young poets to "keep away from the Academy as much as you can." "Spread the Word" by William Safire http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812932536/entertainmentsit William Safire's "On Language" column, 20 years old with the publication of this collection, is one of Sunday morning's great pleasures: Where else can one turn for a timely linguistic assessment of a president's inaugural speech, a corporation's annual report, or the use of terms such as "stud muffin" and "horny"? A still greater pleasure is reading Safire's language columns in book form, where they are accompanied by letters from tireless members of the Nitpickers' League, the Gotcha! Gang, the Squad Squad, the Board of Octogenarian Mentors, and others. The columns may be Safire's, but the letters--from Jacques Barzun, Alistair Cooke, William A. Sabin, even Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Benazir Bhutto--are allowed the final word. And imperfect wordsmiths everywhere may be relieved to know that even William Safire can make a mistake. "Sometimes," he writes in his introduction to "Spread the Word," "a kindly copy editor will call to say, 'Are you deliberately trying to slip this egregious error into the paper?'" "Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Allusions" by Elizabeth Webber and Mike Feinsilber http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0877796289/entertainmentsit New Yorker founding editor Harold Ross, according to this book's preface, is said to have asked writer James Thurber once, with bewilderment, "Is Moby Dick the man or the whale?" Well, even Homer nods (Horace). But, Harold! Thou shouldst be living at this hour (Wordsworth). "Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Allusions" is a Big Rock Candy Mountain (American folk song) for anyone who feels amid the alien corn (Keats) when it comes to understanding allusions everyone else seems to grok (Heinlein). Thanks to the blood, sweat, and tears (Churchill) of authors Elizabeth Webber and Mike Feinsilber--compiling this allusional Rosetta stone must have taken a Herculean, nay Brobdingnagian (Swift), effort--we can come in from the cold (popularized by le Carre) of the dark night of the soul (St. John of the Cross) and dine out on (G. Gordon Liddy and others) these allusions for years to come. --Jane Steinberg was a longtime editor at Seattle Weekly and a stringer for Glamour magazine. She now writes from her home in New Jersey. ****** Looking for power tools? From screwdrivers to scroll saws, our brand-new Home Improvement Store offers the planet's best selection of tools and more. Home Improvement ****** You'll find more great books, articles, excerpts, and interviews in Amazon.com's Reference section at Romance ******
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