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"Brings together classic as well as less well-known essays by major writers, past and present, on the vocation and craft of writing"-- "The Writer's Reader is an anthology of essays on the art and life of writing by major writers of the past and present. It draws on the experiences and advice of many of the world's best writers, mainly from Britain and America, but also from Latin America, Asia, and Europe.These essays offer a wealth of insights into the varied ways in which writers approach writing and represent a practical resource as well as a source of inspiration for those who are hoping to become writers or who are, perhaps, just at the beginnings of their career. They range from classic to less well-known, historical to contemporary, and include, for example, essays on the vocation of writing by Natalia Ginzburg, Robert Louis Stevenson, Flannery O'Connor, Chinua Achebe, and Julia Alvarez; thoughts on preparing for writing by, among others, Roberto Bolano, Joan Didion, Jorge Luis Borges, Raymond Carver, Montaigne, and Cynthia Ozick; and essays on the craft of writing by writers such as Italo Calvino, Colm Tóibin, Virginia Woolf, Philip Roth, Lydia Davis, David Foster Wallace, and Zadie Smith.Taken together, this collection is a must-read for any student or devotee of writing"-- Machine generated contents note: -- I. Vocation -- Natalia Ginzburg, "My Vocation" -- Tillie Olsen, "Silences" -- Robert Louis Stevenson, "Letter to A Young Gentleman Who Proposes To Embrace the Career of Art" -- Flannery O'Connor, "The Nature and Aim of Fiction" -- Chinua Achebe, "The Writer and His Community" -- John Berger, "The Storyteller" -- Jay Parini, "Mentors" -- Edwidge Danticat, "Create Dangerously" -- Charles Baxter, "Full of It" -- Ted Solotaroff, "Writing in the Cold: The First Ten Years" -- Julia Alvarez, "The Older Writer and the Underworld"II. PreparationRoberto Bolano, "Who Would Dare?" -- Walter Benjamin, "Unpacking My Library" -- Joan Didion, "On Keeping a Notebook" -- Henry Miller, "Reading In the Toilet" -- Katherine Anne Porter, "My First Speech" -- Jorge Luis Borges, "Literary Pleasure" -- Michel de Montaigne, "Of Books" -- Raymond Carver, "On Influence" -- Ha Jin, "Deciding to Write in English" -- Georges Perec, "Approaches to What?" -- Cynthia Ozick, "The Lesson of the Master"III. Creation -- Donald Barthelme, "Not Knowing" -- Italo Calvino, "Levels of Reality in Literature" -- Willa Cather, "The Novel Demeuble" -- Leonard Michaels, "The Personal and the Individual" -- Colm Toibin, "Grief" -- Virginia Woolf, "Character in Fiction" -- Henry James, "The Art of Fiction" -- Philip Roth, "Writing American Fiction" -- Lydia Davis, "Form as a Response to Doubt"* -- Binavanga Wainaina, "How Not to Write About Africa" -- Robert Cohen, "Refer Madness" -- David Foster Wallace, "The Nature of the Fun" -- Zadie Smith, "Failbetter"Acknowledgments -- Notes on Contributors -- Index
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