Learn Writing

Alexander Chee, an essayist of “virtuosity and power” (Washington Post), selects twenty essays out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.

Calvin Trillin has reported serious pieces across America for The New Yorker, covered the civil rights movement in the South for Time, and written comic verse for The Nation. But one of his favorite subjects over the years—a superb fit for his unique combination of reportage and humor—has been his own professional environment: the American press.

You've heard of the "Great Books"? These are their evil opposites. From Machiavelli's The Prince to Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto to Alfred Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, these "influential" books have led to war, genocide, totalitarian oppression, family breakdown, and disastrous social experiments. And yet these authors' bad ideas are still popular and pervasive. Here with the antidote is Professor Benjamin Wiker.

A day-by-day guide to help aspiring writers through the process of getting the first draft of a novel or memoir onto the page, The 90-Day Novel was workshopped at LA Writers' Lab over the course of 10 years and has helped thousands of writers complete their work.

This book is intended to teach you how to play the guitar and write songs. Starting with the basics, this book can help you whether you have not even purchased your first guitar yet or even if you are a little more advanced. It will cover: * How to get started as a rhythm guitarist * How to get started as a lead guitarist * How to practice shredding * How to memorize the fretboard * Which guitar accessories can make practice more fun and the songwriting process more effective * How to turn notes into actual songs * How to use improvisation to enhance your songwriting ability immediately * ....

Whether dealing with finding the ideal word, building a sentence, or constructing a paragraph, First You Write a Sentence informs by light example: much richer than a style guide, it can be listened to not only for instruction but for pleasure and delight. And along the way, it shows how good writing can help us notice the world, make ourselves known to others, and live more meaningful lives. It's an elegant gem in praise of the English sentence.

Born in 1800, William Holmes McGuffey had a remarkable ability to memorize, and could commit to mind entire books of the Bible. After becoming a teacher at the age of 14, classroom size was just one of several challenges faced by McGuffey. In many one-teacher schools, students’ ages varied from six to twenty-one, and few textbooks existed. In 1835, a publishing firm asked McGuffey to create a series of graded Readers for primary level students.

The CELPIP Test is a Canadian English test recognized by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) for immigration and citizenship purposes. This book contains 12 Reading Modules and 12 Writing Modules that will help you to prepare for the CELPIP Test. Each Reading Module has 12 questions, and each Writing Module has 2 tasks. There are over 150 questions, similar to the kinds of questions that you can expect to find on an actual CELPIP Test. There is an Answer Key for the Reading Tests, as well as Explanatory Answers. There are also 8 Sample Responses for Writing Modules 1 and 2. Useful ...

Meet the man behind the biggest persona either side of the Mississippi, in this audio companion to the Ken Burns film of the same name. Burns, Geoffrey Ward, and Dayton Duncan pull together a treasure trove of information on the man formerly known as Samuel Clemens, using published and unpublished sources. Also, browse all Mark Twain titles.

Be you an established planner, pantser, or unsure new author, this comprehensive guide has you covered. Adopting a "tools not rules" approach, you’ll discover dozens of definitive worldbuilding tricks and strategies, including surveys showing what audiences want; identifying ineffective, effective, and inspired worldbuilding; the ins and outs of immersion; enhancing audience experience with fantasy conceits; and the four Cs of worldbuilding.

This book shows you step-by-step how you can make it happen. It also shows you the simple steps to make your book a bestseller without spending a dime on ads....

An immersive journey through the culture and cuisine of one Japanese town, its forest, and its watershed - where ducks are hunted by net, saké is brewed from the purest mountain water, and charcoal is fired in stone kilns - by an American writer and food stylist who spent years working alongside artisans.

50 Things to Know About Writing Children’s Books by author Jamie C. McHugh offers an approach to writing a best-selling book for children. Most books on writing children’s books give you some helpful hints. Although there's nothing wrong with that, you need to know the ins and outs of book writing. Based on knowledge from the world's leading experts, reading storybooks to children is the most important activity for developing success in reading.

In 1943 John Steinbeck was on assignment for The New York Herald Tribune, writing from Italy and North Africa, and from England in the midst of the London blitz. In his dispatches he focuses on the human-scale effect of the war, portraying everyone from the guys in a bomber crew to Bob Hope on his USO tour and even fighting alongside soldiers behind enemy lines. Taken together, these writings create an indelible portrait of life in wartime.

In this widely acclaimed memoir ("Riveting, moving...a wonderful book" The New York Times Book Review), Katharine Graham tells her story—one that is extraordinary both for the events it encompasses and for the courage, candor, and dignity of its telling.

Robert Olen Butler, author of Perfume River, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, and A Small Hotel, teaches graduate fiction at Florida State University—his version of literary boot camp. In From Where You Dream, Butler reimagines the process of writing as emotional rather than intellectual and tells writers how to achieve the dream space necessary for composing honest, inspired fiction.

For nearly two centuries, the authorship of William Shakespeare's plays has been challenged by writers and artists as diverse as Sigmund Freud, Mark Twain, Henry James, Helen Keller, Orson Welles, Malcolm X, and Sir Derek Jacobi. How could a young man from rural Warwickshire, lacking a university education, write some of the greatest works in the English language?

This guide to play reading for students and practitioners of both theater and literature complements, rather than contradicts or repeats, traditional methods of literary analysis of scripts. Ball developed his method during his work as Literary Director at the Guthrie Theater, building his guide on the crafts playwrights of every period and style use. The audiobook is full of tools for students and practitioners to use as they investigate plot, character, theme, and the other crucial parts of the superstructure of a play.

How many times have you gone through something and said “I could write a book about this!”? Now is the time to stop doubting and start planning! Just as every great meal starts with a recipe, every epic novel starts with an epic outline. But is an outline really necessary? Can’t you just wing it? Isn’t all that time on an outline better spent on actually writing? And doesn’t an outline just pour water on that spark of creativity? That’s what you may have heard…until now! Writing is like The Hare and the Tortoise. Slow and steady will always beat quick and careless.

Most high school students never have received any instruction in how to write a personal essay. Yet at a time when getting admitted to their dream college is more competitive than ever, the admissions essay may turn out to be the single most important thing they will ever write. The stakes are high. In Writing Tools for the College Essay, veteran journalist and writing coach Roy Peter Clark shows how any student can showcase their unique achievements, intellect, and attributes to stand out from the crowd.