Amazon.com: The Writer's Journal (9780385315104): Sheila Bender: Books

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1996

Forty award-winning writers reveal the elements of the creative writing process through excerpts from their private journals, illuminating how they record what they observe and how their thoughts and observations end up in their work.

#outer_postBodyPS { display: none; } #psGradient { display: none; } #psPlaceHolder { display: none; } #psExpand { display: none; } Forty award-winning writers reveal the elements of the creative writing process through excerpts from their private journals, illuminating how they record what they observe and how their thoughts and observations end up in their work.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Writer's Journal offers a fascinating look at the creative mind at work. Forty contemporary authors of varying degrees of renown display the private pages of their writer's journals, accompanied by their own discussion of the journal's role in the writing process. Some of the contributors keep separate journals for each of their writing projects, while others prefer letter writing as a form of journal keeping. Still others prefer the scrap method: "My journal those years," admits fiction writer Ron Carlson, "had been a large Z.C.M.I. shopping bag which by that August was full of half a bushel of little papers on which I had scribbled: envelopes, folded memos, torn slips, wedding announcements, rodeo programs and such." For a couple of writers, such as poet Stanley Plumly, "the very idea of the journal is a dissipation of energies better spent on the work itself"; even still, says Plumly, "the changes I make, the rewrites, the editings, they are my journal." Nearly all of the writers agree that the aggregation of material and freedom of speech afforded by keeping a journal is invaluable. Denise Levertov finds that "The value of the notebook is in the way writing such things down deepens our experience of them," while Kyoko Mori uses journal entries "as a visual artist might use pencil sketches or snapshots." Lisa Shea's journal is "where I tell the truth, and the place where I fashion lies." And Ilan Stavans's journal is "simultaneously an agenda, a loyal therapist, a creative notebook, and a confessional pulpit."

From Publishers Weekly

Playwright, essayist and poet Bender (Writing the Personal Essay) has done working writers a tremendous favor in compiling this collection of journal snippets and meditations on journal-keeping from a number of contemporary writers. Among the best meditations are those that illustrate how the quoted entries find their way into a contributor's work of poetry or prose, as in the case of Linda Bierds's poem "White Bears: Tolstoy at Astapovo." Also fascinating is the variety of ways in which writers define their journals as journals. Omar S. Casta?eda, for example, does "not keep a writer's journal" but uses "scraps of napkins, clippings, full-page notes, unordered quotes, character sketches, interesting lines, paper-clipped photographs, ripped-out-of-magazine things." Some turn to letters, while others keep only travel journals. Yet no matter what the form, or what they call it ("project notebook," "scrapbook", etc.), all recognize as a "writer's journal" that well from which they draw ideas, phrases, thoughts and insights for their finished work. The gravest weakness of the volume is that, despite the oft-emphasized cultural diversity of the contributors, there is a telling sameness to their essays on journal-keeping (and sometimes even their entries). This derives in large part from the artistic and occupational uniformity of the selected authors. There are no writers of popular or genre fiction, for example, and at least three-quarters of those included appear to make their livelihoods as college teachers or professors. As is, the volume is too long and might have made do with only half the number of contributors.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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More About the Author

› Visit Amazon's Sheila Bender Page

After publishing many books on writing for a variety of publishers, I decided to launch Writing It Real, an online magazine for those who write from personal experience.

I have been publishing the magazine weekly since October, 2001, as well as facilitating others' writing in online classes, phone and email consults, and manuscript evaluations through WritingItReal.com. I also offer help through alliances with IAJW.org and Writers.com and through in-person seminars across the US. Most recently, I've enjoyed teaching for the Whidbey Island Writers' Conference, the Field's End Writer's Conference, the Write on the Sound Conference, Centrum Foundation's Writer's Conference, and the annual Writing It Real conference I do with Meg Files and Jack Heffron. I offer in-person classes regularly at Hugo House in Seattle and The Writers' Workhoppe in Port Townsend, WA as well as at libraries in the area.

In addition to the instructional books I write, I have a memoir out, A New Theology: Turning to Poetry in a Time of Grief. It took seven years to write about the five months following the death of my son in a snow boarding accident. I can think of no better way to heal while grieving than by reading poems and personal essays and stories by others who have suffered similar losses. When we have lost someone dear to us, we must live our lives double, for them and for us, to honor them. Writing toward discovery, as we do in writing poems and memoir, helps us live in this way and brings us energy.

I received my Master's Degree from the University of Washington where I studied with David Wagoner, William Matthews, Stephen Dunn, Stanley Plumly, Colleen McElroy and many other fine poets. I went on to also master the art of prose, and I enjoy each instructional book and article I write as I am constantly learning and sharing that learning with others is a passion. I hope you'll visit my website at www.writingitreal.com as well as my facebook fan pages on which I publish inspirational and informative writing messages as well as publication information: www.facebook.com/writingitreal and www.facebook/anewtheology.