Library Notes
Rebecca Hyde – August 28, 2011


Have you dreamed of being a writer or are you just curious about how writers write? Then follow the example of the armchair traveler: read about the experiences of other people. You may become a better reader, if not a writer.

The following three books are not standard “how to write” manuals. They are engaging if you accept writing as a road to self-discovery, as a way of truth-telling, or turning life into art.

Roger Rosenblatt is an essayist, playwright, and novelist. He is also a professor who teaches English and writing. His book, “Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing,” is a narrative of one semester in his “Writing Everything” classes at Stony Brook University. In his postscript letter to his students, Rosenblatt offers parting advice: Write as if your reader needed you desperately, because he does; both you and the human heart are full of sorrow, but only one if you can speak for that sorrow and ease its burdens and make it sing.

Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird” describes the reality of a writer’s life: feeling overwhelmed by the task, letting perfectionism ruin your writing, having writer’s block. As Lamott’s father told her ten-year-old brother, who was struggling to write a report on birds, “Just take it bird by bird.”

Jill Conway is an autobiographer and former Smith College president. In “When Memory Speaks,” she examines the work of memoirists over the centuries, reflecting on the different ways men and women narrate their lives and why autobiography is so popular with modern readers and writers.

The fourth book is about writing a journal: “A Trail Through Leaves: The Journal as a Path to Place,” by Hannah Hinchman. Using observation and drawings, Hinchman records the details of her life. We are shown how to patiently observe and enjoy our surroundings.

Here are several more books about the experience and craft of writing. In the classic “Writing Down the Bones,” Natalie Goldberg offers help in “freeing the writer within.” Susan Witting Albert’s “Writing from Life: Telling Your Soul’s Story,” is based on her workshops on “life-writing” for women. In “Write the Story of Your Life,” Ruth Kanin examines the popularity of autobiography and also instructs through examples and suggested readings. Evelyn Nichols and Anne Lowenkopf offer practical advice in “Lifelines: A Guide to Writing Your Personal Recollections.”