Staff Picks

In this thoughtful series of vignettes--one for each her fifty years as a poet--former Poet Laureate Joy Harjo reflects on how her Native heritage and life experiences have shaped her work. Library Journal calls this "a comforting island for writers who enjoy reading about how authors succeed." Recommended for readers who enjoyed Ann Patchett's recent memoir, These Precious Days.

 

Publisher's description:

In this lyrical meditation about the why of writing poetry, Joy Harjo reflects on significant points of illumination, experience, and questioning from her fifty years as a poet. Composed of intimate vignettes that take us through the author's life journey as a youth in the late 1960s, a single mother, and a champion of Native nations, this book offers a fresh understanding of how poetry functions as an expression of purpose, spirit, community, and memory--in both the private, individual journey and as a vehicle for prophetic, public witness. Harjo insists that the most meaningful poetry is birthed through cracks in history from what is broken and unseen. At the crossroads of this brokenness, she calls us to watch and listen for the songs of justice for all those America has denied. This is an homage to the power of words to defy erasure--to inscribe the story, again and again, of who we have been, who we are, and who we can be.

 

This book is billed as a guide for writers AND as a master class in the classic Russian short story--and it's wonderful on both fronts. If masters like Chekhov, Tolstoy and their peers have baffled you, Saunders is an able guide to why they matter--and how learning what they do well can make your own writing better. I didn't want this book to end, and I want Saunders to be my writing teacher.

 

Publisher description:

George Saunders guides the reader through seven classic Russian short stories he's been teaching for twenty years as a professor in the prestigious Syracuse University graduate MFA creative writing program. Paired with stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, these essays are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it's more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. Saunders approaches each of these stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is as much a craft as it is a quality of openness and a willingness to see the world through new eyes. Funny, frank, and rigorous, this book ultimately shows how great fiction can change a person's life and become a benchmark of one's moral and ethical beliefs.

 

I've looked to this book again and again over the years, whenever the critic on my shoulder keeps me from writing. The title comes from a memory of the author's brother, stricken with the task of writing an essay about birds. Lamott's brother turns to their father for help, who tells him simply, "Just take it bird by bird." Written as if she's giving advice to an old friend, the book takes you through all the uncertainties and pitfalls of being a new, young writer, but even for practiced writers, her words still feel like a favorite comfy blanket. With practical and creative advice that comes from years of experience both writing and teaching, as well as prompts to help the reader engage with the ideas presented, I'll by using this book for help getting over writers block for many years to come.

 

Publisher description:

For a quarter century, more than a million readers—scribes and scribblers of all ages and abilities—have been inspired by Anne Lamott's hilarious, big-hearted, homespun advice. Advice that begins with the simple words of wisdom passed down from Anne's father—also a writer—in the iconic passage that gives the book its title: "Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'" An essential volume for generations of writers young and old, Bird by Bird is a modern classic