Customer Reviews

Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive

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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.

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.

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.

I just finished reading "Toxic Feedback". I found it fascinating, full of humor and wisdom. The chapter "The Power of Positive Feedback" was especially strong because one could see the action of positive feedback in the exchange of letters. Very convincing, even if the whole exchange was made up. My wife and I have acquired many books on writing over the years, but this is one of the handful on the 'must have' list because it addresses a central issue of the writing life in a helpful way.

THE most useful book for writers I've read since Anne LaMott's Bird by Bird. Joni B. Cole describes the writing life and the giving and receiving of feedback with the wit and humor and honesty that can only come from personal experience. In Toxic Feedback, Cole provides specific examples from other successful writers (like Grace Paley and Ted Kooser, to name only 2)as well from her own life as a writer, which, it turns out, is a lot like that which the rest of us live ~ right down to the same fears and frustrations and making deals with the cosmos if "someone, oh dear God _anyone_, will just agree to publish me . . . ." If you're a writer you'll find yourself in these pages ~ and you'll also find the information Cole provides singularly helpful in coping with toxic feedback when you receive it and in avoiding being a person who gives it, even unintentionally. Indeed, Toxic Feedback really does what the subtitle promises: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive.

Rebecca Longster
Writer, Writing Teacher (Purdue University), and Creative Writing Student (University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast MFA Program)

Managing feedback -it's something we do all day long, perhaps not even realizing it. So why not see the positive side of feedback -even if it's toxic! That's the perspective of Toxic Feedback's Joni B. Cole -
As a talk show host I've had an opportunity to speak with many writers and one theme is constant - feedback. How necessary the feedback is in order to write, rewrite, rewrite and so on. Learning how to best process this feedback is key in making one's writing as sharp as possible.
Toxic Feedback also speaks to those who are doling out the (sometimes) toxic feedback. It cautions that the way something is said can make all the difference in the writer's world. What would have happened if Khaled Hosseini had given up and not had The Kite Runner published? Thank goodness we'll never know! Joni has included stories from Khaled to fiction writer, Jodi Picoult plus many others. You will know that you are not alone in your quest for publication and that all feedback can be seen in a positive light!

Robin Kall
host, "Reading With Robin" WHJJ, Providence, RI

I received this book as a reviewer copy a week ago. As soon as I started reading, I didn't put it down. Cole's approach--honest, open, humorous, direct--is refreshing, valuable and something not to miss. She puts the feedback process into a valuable context, offers solutions for how to seek it, how to handle it, how to provide it. This is a valuable addition to any writer--or teacher's--bookshelf. Buy a copy for yourself, then buy one for a friend.

I have always thought of myself as "thicked skinned" when it comes to receiving feedback on my writing (and to be put more generally, life). And while it was easy to sort of brush off criticism, I never imagined there was a proactive way to manage that feedback (even that which I might have labeled as the worst or useless feedback) into improving my writing whether it was creative pieces or things I was assigned at work. This book has given me a whole new perspective, and even more importantly, the tools to channel all feedback into productive and useful responses that give me a fresh and different angle on my work.

One of the elements I found the most useful in the book was the clear and concise models for not only receiving but also giving feedback. Another great element is the fantastic examples of published authors who have experienced feedback that almost kept from them writing. There are examples from authors such as Khaled Hosseini who wrote the Kite Runner, which was almost never published and an interview with American poet laureate Ted Kooser (to name a few).

Finally, as someone who attends writing workshops, I have highly recommend this book to all my peers. Joni lays out tips and ideas for successful writing groups including how to respond proactively to group members' work and how to maintain a professional but comfortable environment where people are not afraid to share their work. It has helped me enormously in my participation in writing groups.

Toxic Feedback will remain a book I turn to over and over again. If I am down on my writing I will re-read Jodi Picoult or Sarah Stewart Taylor's experiences. Whenever I don't feel particularly appreciative of a certain response or if I a not sure how to approach another person's work. This book is such a great tool, anyone who has even ever thought about writing should have it on their shelf, right next to William Strunk, Jr.'s "The Elements of Style".

Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and ThriveJoni Cole's "Toxic Feedback" was a delight to read. The friendly encouraging voice kept the pages turning. Her good humor showed through to the last word on the last page and made me want to tell all my writer friends about this book. "Toxic Feedback" is a book every writer needs and Joni Cole is an author that needs to be listened to. Her message that feedback is important in the writers work is told in a very engaging manner, and made me "want to go out and get some."

Joni B. Cole's TOXIC FEEDBACK is a book that every writer should have on his/her shelf. It is, as Cole herself says, "a fresh perspective on the feedback process...one that takes into account not only the intellectual factors that support good writing, but the emotional factors that also play a crucial role in the feedback process." Weaving together her own experiences in the trenches (both as a writer and a writing-workshop instructor) and interviews with such notables as Grace Paley, Gregory Maguire, and Jodi Picoult, she guides us through the minefield with understanding and humor.
Cole reminds me a lot of Brenda Ueland, author of the classic IF YOU WANT TO WRITE (1938). You feel that she, like Ueland, is talking to you, making suggestions but not dumping a "how-to" manual in your lap. And she, too, is very down-to-earth and very much in the writer's court. She is pro-active, pointing out "teachable moments" -- ways of providing creative, constructive feedback -- in workshop or strategies for dealing with waiting. In other words, it is the ultimate writer's survivor guide and more than worth the price.