7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Preventing Mental Meltdowns, July 20, 2006
This review is from: Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive (Paperback)
Anyone who howled while reading Anne Lamott's BIRD BY BIRD is going to love Joni Cole's TOXIC FEEDBACK. The similarities between the two are obvious: both deal with the writing process, both offer zany, "true-life" examples (from either their lives or the lives of their friends) and both are narrated with quirky, self-deprecating humor.
While Lamott starts the ball rolling by urging readers to sit in their chairs and start writing, Cole jumps into the process at the feedback stage. The whole idea of feedback, which Cole defines as "any response to a writer or his work that helps him write more, write better, and be happier," is a topic worthy of analysis that has been ignored for years. And probably with good reason. Which one of us has gotten through school without receiving comments that filled us with rage, shame, and, it must be confessed, even murderous impulses against whatever pen-wielding teacher criticized our prose, our grammar, or our ideas? Let's face it, our value as a person?
Cole steps delicately into this landmine of criticism. Based on her experience as a writing student, a published author, and years of leading community writing workshops out of her home, Cole rejects the old slash and burn approach to criticizing student writing and offers a saner and more effective approach to giving and receiving feedback.
Her interviews with many successful writers reveal how important feedback was to them early in their careers and how they go about getting feedback now that they are rich and famous. Fledgling writer Ernie Hebert felt shamed when told at Breadloaf by the famous John Gardner that "no writer would write a sentence like that." Gardner insisted that every scene must be well-written. Hebert began taking more pains to ensure that every scene was handled with the same thoughtful attention and his career took off. Several authors confess how important positive feedback was to their growth as writers. Sarah Stewart Taylor remembers her ninth grade English teacher pulling her out in the hall to tell her "you're a writer"; Grace Paley reflects that "my nature wasn't ambitious enough to go ahead on my own. I'm aware of that encouragement that people like me need."
Cole argues that because successful writers remember feedback that moved them forward or held them back, it is clear that feedback is an important fact in a writer's life. Thus we should hone our feedback skills to empower, rather than disempower, writers. Yet she also notes that writers need to know how to process feedback effectively in order to turn it to their advantage. She describes communication strategies that help further good writing whether one is giving or receiving feedback.
In addition to casting the notion of feedback in a new light, TOXIC FEEDBACK also demystifies the often tension-ridden relationship between editor and writer. Do you have a question you'd like to ask an editor? Cole has probably asked it.
She explains in clear, simple language how to communicate effectively with editors so that the publication process can move forward with the least amount of stress possible. She closes the book describing what she's learned in the twelve years she's been running a writer's workshop in a small Vermont town. Although the general reader will enjoy Cole's book, her primary audience is writers and those who teach writing. Her humorous, no-nonsense approach for those providing and receiving feedback is timely and long-overdue. This book is a little gem.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Addicted to feedback!, October 31, 2006
This review is from: Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive (Paperback)
I used to be afraid to show my work to anyone, but now I crave responses. Toxic Feedback really helped me make the transition, and I can't tell you how rewarding it is.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Toxic Feedback, September 8, 2006
This review is from: Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive (Paperback)
Joni Cole discusses what to do and what not to do in reviewing others' writing and receiving reviews, and gives pointers for holding writing workshops.
As a writer and a longtime writing workshop member, I found this book very useful. I've experienced most of the forms of toxic feedback she describes (and worse). In particular, I liked what she had to say about learning styles, about not overwhelming the reviewee with too much information or too much large-scale negative commentary, and about assessing a work in terms of what it is trying to do, not trying to make it into something else.
Vengefully, I wanted more castigation of toxic-feedback-givers, but it really wouldn't have been necessary.
I think this book is a must for anyone involved in a writing workshop or creative writing instruction.
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