by Louise DeSalvo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 7, 2014
Elementary in many ways but infused with the faith of a true believer.
Note to aspiring writers: Slow down.
Such is the primary advice from the author of Writing as a Way of Healing (1999) and of assorted memoirs and biographies. DeSalvo (Creative Writing and Literature/Hunter Coll.; On Moving: A Writer's Meditation on New Houses, Old Haunts, and Finding Home Again, 2009, etc.) structures her book in tiny chapters, some lists of things to do (with bullet points) and myriad examples from the works of writers whose methods mirror those she’s recommending. Not surprisingly, Virginia Woolf appears continually (DeSalvo has published books about her), and there’s a passage about Tobias Wolff, as well. Among the others making numerous appearances are Michael Chabon, Zadie Smith, Ian McEwan, Jeffrey Eugenides, Paul Auster and Joan Didion. DeSalvo also tells us in many chapters that she is currently at work on a book about her father and World War II, and she recommends highly her own ruminative style, which features multiple revisions. Although she mentions Joyce Carol Oates in a different context (writing about difficult experiences), she does not consider Oates’ enviable productivity and her mastery of the art of fast writing. Similarly, she mentions Anthony Trollope’s use of a writing diary but neglects to mention that speedy Anthony wrote his nearly 50 novels (and numerous other works—longhand) in only 35 years. DeSalvo does have lots of useful advice, however, much of which reduces to this: If you really want to write, you will make the time and organize yourself in ways that will make possible both your writing life and your “real” one. She offers many tips—some borrowed from others—that will help novices do so. Perhaps the book’s most useful feature is its genial optimism—the you-can-do-this tone that beginning (and insecure) writers will find encouraging.
Elementary in many ways but infused with the faith of a true believer.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-05103-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
Share your opinion of this book
More by Louise DeSalvo
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
Share your opinion of this book
More by Ludwig Bemelmans
BOOK REVIEW
developed by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
BOOK REVIEW
by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
BOOK REVIEW
by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
Share your opinion of this book
More by Charlayne Hunter-Gault
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.