Write Your Heart Out [Paperback]

Rebecca McClanahan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2001

Readers will discover the rewards of crafting personal, heartfelt stories, essays, poems or memoirs as a means of exploring the most important people, events and emotions in their lives.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Write Your Heart Out, in the words of author Rebecca McClanahan, "is a mixture of direct instruction, writing exercises and prompts, examples from published and unpublished texts, and personal reflections on the writing process." Though a final chapter of the book does touch upon preparing your "private I" writing for the "public eye," the book emphasizes process, not product. McClanahan is interested in writing as a way of life, not in writing as a career. Her gentle, mellifluous words encourage the would-be writer to explore journal writing, memoir, writing about joy and sorrow, letter writing, and collaborative writing. The book's lovely, anecdotal prose is geared toward the person who has always wanted to write, but who, for whatever reason, just hasn't gotten around to it. Don't waste years waiting for life to become less busy, McClanahan says. "No one actually has time to write; each writer must make the time." --Jane Steinberg

From Library Journal

What makes a how-to writing manual effective often depends on what the reader brings to the book. This book is for those wanting inspiration and new ways of looking at their own world rather than aloof advice on how to improve their technique. McClanahan, the author of six books, including Word Painting, focuses here on the less tangible aspects of writing, with advice on writing from the perspective of joy rather than sorrow and writing letters of love and sympathy. She emphasizes the therapeutic character of personal writing and discusses such topics as writing about the past, work, one's goals, interests, and fears. Her warm and friendly tone is sure to inspire many. Well written and browsable, this book is highly recommended for public libraries. Lisa J. Cihlar, Monroe P.L., Monroe, WI
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Walking Stick Press; 1st edition (August 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582970068
• ISBN-13: 978-1582970066
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #281,253 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Rebecca McClanahan's tenth book, The Tribal Knot, a multi-generational memoir, is forthcoming from Indiana University Press in 2013. Her work has appeared in Best American Essays, Best American Poetry, The Kenyon Review, The Gettysburg Review, and numerous anthologies. The recipient of the Wood Prize from Poetry, a Pushcart Prize in fiction, the Glasgow Award for nonfiction, and literary fellowships from New York Foundation for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council, McClanahan teaches in the MFA programs of Queens University and Rainier Writers Workshop.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Heart is the Muse October 13, 2001

By Remy Benoit

Format:Paperback

"When all else is dissolving around you, your words are forming."

As someone who teaches writing from the perspective of using history, personal and collective, to heal the psychic wounds of life, I found this the most significant statement in this well written and practical guide to tapping heart knowledge.

McClanahan's approach to ways to get to where you can write 'your heart out' is logical, comfortably paced, and begins with the important question as to why we write.

She notes how the writer's desk is anywhere that observations can be collected; images, ideas, news noted in private writings that capture "your personal heartbeat."

These writings, journals, diaries become the resource field for your public writings and it is important that she expresses that your joy, as well as your pain, should be brought to them.

Moving the reader through suggestions that help to jog memory, notice detail, provide an historical record, or capture a passage journey, she takes you to the realm of truth telling and provides devices to excavate those truths.

It is from those found, and examined, truths; from finding your past, that your writing opens new vistas to your present, and to your future.

Writing Your Heart Out is a good place to begin the journey.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Get into the Heart of Writing July 29, 2003

By shoutgrace

Format:Paperback

Rebecca McClanahan shows you how to turn your personal experiences, ideas and feelings into stories, essays, poems and memoirs. She gets you to release your inner self and just simply 'Write Your Heart Out.' As you read McClanahan helps you learn to write deeply, honestly and imaginatively about important people, events and emotions in your life, and set you on a path of dramatic work of art and self-discovery. When you're done you have purge all the cobwebs out of your system and let all your creative energy flow onto the page. She gives you the courage to explore and experience the things what matters to you. Everything that you write in your journal is the basis to public writing. McClanahan prepares you for that writing process. This book gives one inspiration of finding new ways of looking at the way they see things in the world, writing more descriptively and improve on their technique. It's great for a beginner just getting started or someone who need encouragement to writing better.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars So, you want to write... February 6, 2004

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Write Your Heart Out was on the bedside table while I was in Florida on vacation two summers ago. I picked it up, read it, thought about it all the way home, ordered my own copy, began to write, and just published my first book. The inspiration, the encouragement, the gentle nudges in Write Your Heart Out are wonderful. I'm going to recommend it to my writing class.