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Jump Start: How to Write From Everyday Life
 
 
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Jump Start: How to Write From Everyday Life [Paperback]

Robert Wolf (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

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Book Description

September 13, 2001 0195140435 978-0195140439 Trade
For years, Robert Wolf traveled around the Midwest and the South teaching small town folk, farmers, and homeless individuals to write about their lives through poems, essays and fiction. Through his own small publishing company, Free River Press, Wolf published these stories of the forgotten parts of America. In 1999, Oxford published an anthology of his students' works in a volume entitled American Mosaic: Poetry and Prose by Everyday Folk.
Now, we have Jump Start--a concise guide that offers Wolf's writing techniques from his Free River Press workshops across the country. Rooted in the oral tradition, Wolf's methods include storytelling, visualization, spontaneous prose composition, and sketching. Useful for both the individual and groups as well as for beginning or practiced writers, his concrete techniques are flexible enough to be applied towards any form (poetry, composition, non-fiction, plays, etc.). With the inclusion of writing samples from past workshop participants, Wolf's main emphasis is that people from all walks of life, even with no previous background in writing, may produce meaningful and memorable work.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In many writing circles, talking about works-in-progress is taboo, as if doing so will somehow suck the life out of them. Hogwash, says Robert Wolf, whose book Jump Start was born out of 20 years of teaching writing as part of an oral tradition. Wolf encourages his students to talk through their pieces before writing them; he urges them to rewrite traditional texts afresh; he is keen on noncompetitive group writing. Anyone, says Wolf, "can produce good and meaningful work." He should know. His Free River Press was established to publish writings by the homeless. He then took it upon himself to teach workshops to and collect writings from people of varying regions and socio-economic backgrounds. The result was An American Mosaic, "America's collective autobiography, written primarily by people without literary ambition." Jump Start's many suggested exercises involve eavesdropping, "sketching" (with words), listening for patterns of speech, imitation, and learning to observe without judging. --Jane Steinberg

Review


"Bob Wolf's approach to oral history is unique"--Studs Terkel (on American Mosaic)



Product Details

  • Paperback: 176 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; Trade edition (September 13, 2001)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0195140435
  • ISBN-13: 978-0195140439
  • Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 6.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,336,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting author + process + exercises, February 1, 2004
By 
John C. Dunbar (Sugar Land, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
The author Robert Wolf held writing workshops for homeless and then rural people in the U.S. These Free River Press workshops provided interesting samples used in this 150 page writing instruction book. I'm sure that now after his skin has hardened from getting neophytes to write so well, Mr. Wolf could perhaps repeat his great success at the college level.

This book presents methods for writing creative non-fiction, particularly memoir. It targets group writing but I particularly liked it for my individual practice for writing essays. The exercises were new, and look useful and fun to try.

I found lots of useful information in this book.

John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX

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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
Writing practice must be constant for growth to occur. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
spontaneous prose composition, double bacon cheeseburger, big catfish, blue gills, memoir writing, free writing
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Miss Lizzy, Brer Rabbit, Brer B'ar, New York, Murray Hudson, Old Bob, Rod Haynes, Ben Smith, Old Man Bob, Thomas Wolfe, Butterfly Pond, Jack Kerouac, Rum Alley, Exercise Pick, Exercise Take, Exercise Write, Free River Press, Jack Hudson, Larry O'Hara, Miss Brindle, Miss Channelle Cooper, Preliminary Matters, Rogues Island Memoir, The Goose Girl, Uncle Remus
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