Customer Reviews

The Woman Who Spilled Words All over Herself: Writing and Living the Zona Rosa Way

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Daniell's book is like a banquet; she has cooked up something for everyone, beginning writers, those in the middle and old hands. This is a book I buy frequently now and give away to people I like, both writers and nonwriters. As a desert, there are a whole lot of things you can do with young people to stimulate the creative process in The Woman Who Spilled Words All Over Herself. Super good book.

I was a little skeptical about a new-age-y writing book--another writer urging us wannabes to spill words. But Rosemary Daniell won me over. First of all, she's really practicing what she preaches--and not for the money. The first chapter, from which the title was taken, describes her experiences teaching writing in schools and prisons. It's the intersection of her greatest love and the greatest need--and both admirable and daring. I've had the pleasure of using her discussion starters with children ages 5-8 and it works!

In her chapter on self-sabotage I recognized people I know as well as myself. I will pull this chapter out on occasion to remind myself what NOT to do.

I was most taken, though, with the "Further Notes" chapter. In it she described things I've had to learn the hard way myself. (She calls it demystification--thank you, Rosemary, I wish I'd met you years ago.) For example, how to paraphrase everything first. I'm halfway finished with an MFA and have studied writing with many famous writers. NO ONE has ever mentioned this before. But it works.

There are also many provocative female ideas embedded in this book, like the use of irony in good women's fiction. I'd like to sit in on that discussion. This is a book I will buy and keep and read when I need to hear the voice of someone experienced and wise.

This book is more memoir than "beginner writer" exercise book (though there are some exercises), but this is precisely why I liked it. And, of course, the "read-like-a-novel" style of writing sets it apart from ordinary "how to write" books.

Like another reviewer, I wish Rosemary and her Zona Rosa group were in my town!! Failing that, though, this book is a keeper!

Rosemary Daniell is on a mission, and part of her mission is to make sure that women in particular, but men as well fight and slay their "demons/issues" and get on with the life they were meant to have. Her dedication has led her to a 24-year love affair with Zona Rosa and to the brave souls who seek to break past their pasts, their fears, their excuses and live a full and authentic life. This book may claim to be "about" writing, but it's a lot more than a how-to book. The exorcises alone are worth the price. And by all means, if you can get to a Zona Rosa meeting--go! You're in for a treat.

Rosemary Daniell is a woman who has listened intently and found her passion and her voice. She shares both in this book so that others may know what the experience is like.

My favorite part is where she is working with students and the class is working on the poem "Eggs" and students ponder what is it really like to sit in a bathtub of eggs. The words are so strong they don't just invite visualization, they demand it.

Having sat in on a Zona Rosa meeting, I can say that working with Rosemary Daniell is just as electrifying.

I have read many writing books, and have never been so moved by a discussion of how writing and life intersect since reading GARP so many years ago. My enthusiasm for this book leaked to a friend, so I lent it to her for a week while I was in the midst of reading it. She devoured it, and was truly inspired. The following weekend she and another friend had a mini-zona rosa meeting of their own in that they spent the day together doing some of the writing exercises at the back of the book. They found them tremendously USEFUL, not like some of the beginning level creative writing 101 exercises that are in so many writing books. Now I've got the book back and I'm going to finish it, do some of the exercises and try some of the recipes too! This is a book for serious writers, many of whom don't belong to writing groups, and it's about time. I wish Rosemary and Zona Rosa were in my town

Often times, when we hear about an author on the radio, read aninterview with them in the paper, or meet them at a book signing, wecome away with the sense that they somehow arrived magically and effortlessly at that very moment with little more than good ideas and some self-realization. Daniell's intricate memoir/writing guide explodes those first impressions of who and what a writer is. We are allowed into her writing groups, her life, and by extension, the lives of the many varied people she has come in contact with: schoolkids, disadvantaged children, poets, prisoners, boyfriends, husbands, drunks, suicides, other writers, and her own adult students - some of great talent, others not so stable.

If you have felt that how-to-write books leave the you-you-know out as they spin their ropes, hoping to land their loops on the horns of any aspiring writer in the wild herd, "The Woman who Spilled Words All Over Herself: Writing and Living the Zona Rosa Way" by Rosemary Daniell will sneak up on you and empower you. It reads like a novel about the passion for writing, hers and her many successful students'. Then, however untamed you are, Rosemary's innocent-seeming prods get to your need to give milk. This author is utterly personal about her path into the feminine pink forbidden depths of the writing life. She is deeply objective as she tells about obstacles to writing she has known. Then she shares what enabled her and student after student and writing friend after writing friend to "jump over the moon", i.e. produce their own unique manuscript. Only then does she give you idea starters and guidelines. Here is a book like a wise old friend. Good to own, mark up, thumb over, and use often. It will get you started and you'll keep going back to it. "The Woman Who Spilled Words All Over Herself; Writing and Living the Zona Rosa Way" by Rosemary Daniell. Published by Faber and Faber, 1997.

Again, another book that this aspiring writer didn't know she couldn't live without! Highly Recommended!

Through memoir, anecdote, and opinion Daniell illustrates the connection between thought, work and the writer's life. If you want to write, by all means, read all the books you want on the mechanics of the craft, but when you are really ready to get down to work, Rosemary Daniell can show you how to become a writer