Letters to a Young Writer: Some Practical and Philosophical Advice

Author: McCann, Colum

Color: White

Edition: First Edition

Features:

• RANDOM HOUSE

Number Of Pages: 192

Details:

From the bestselling author of the National Book Award winner Let the Great World Spin comes a lesson in how to be a writer—and so much more than that. Intriguing and inspirational, this book is a call to look outward rather than inward. McCann asks his readers to constantly push the boundaries of experience, to see empathy and wonder in the stories we craft and hear. A paean to the power of language, both by argument and by example, Letters to a Young Writer is fierce and honest in its testament to the bruises delivered by writing as both a profession and a calling. It charges aspiring writers to learn the rules and even break them. These fifty-two essays are ultimately a profound challenge to a new generation to bring truth and light to a dark world through their art.

Reviews:

Praise for the fiction of Colum McCann Let the Great World Spin Winner of the National Book Award

“One of the most electric, profound novels I have read in years.” —Jonathan Mahler, The New York Times Book Review

“There’s so much passion and humor and pure life force on every page that you’ll find yourself giddy, dizzy, overwhelmed.” —Dave Eggers TransAtlantic Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

“Reminiscent of the finest work of Michael Ondaatje and Michael Cunningham.” —O: The Oprah Magazine

“Another sweeping, beautifully constructed tapestry of life . . . Reading McCann is a rare joy.” —The Seattle Times Thirteen Ways of Looking A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

“The irreducible mystery of human experience ties this small collection together, and in each of these stories McCann explores that theme in strikingly effective ways.” —The Washington Post

“Extraordinary . . . incandescent.” —Chicago Tribune

About the Author:

Colum McCann is the internationally bestselling author of the novels TransAtlantic, Let the Great World Spin, Zoli, Dancer, This Side of Brightness, and Songdogs, as well as three critically acclaimed story collections. His fiction has been published in thirty-five languages. He has received many honors, including the National Book Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres award from the French government, and the Ireland Fund of Monaco Literary Award in Memory of Princess Grace. He has been named one of Esquire’s “Best and Brightest,” and his short film Everything in This Country Must was nominated for an Oscar in 2005. A contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and The Paris Review, he teaches in the Hunter College MFA Creative Writing program. He lives in New York City with his wife and their three children, and he is the cofounder of the global nonprofit story exchange organization Narrative 4. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Letter to a Young Writer I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. —Rainer Maria Rilke Do the things that do not compute. Be earnest. Be devoted. Be subversive of ease. Read aloud. Risk yourself. Do not be afraid of sentiment even when others call it sentimentality. Be ready to get ripped to pieces: it happens. Permit yourself anger. Fail. Take pause. Accept the rejections. Be vivified by collapse. Practice resuscitation. Have wonder. Bear your portion of the world. Find a reader you trust. They must trust you back. Be a student, not a teacher, even when you teach. Don’t B.S. yourself. If you believe the good reviews, you must believe the bad. Still, don’t hammer yourself down. Do not allow your heart to harden. Face it, the cynics have better one-liners than we do. Take heart: they can never finish their stories. Enjoy difficulty. Embrace mystery. Find the universal in the local. Put your faith in language—character will follow and plot, too, will eventually emerge. Push yourself further. Do not tread water. It is pos...

EAN: 9780399590801

Release Date: 04-04-2017

Languages: English

Item Note: Great shape- pages are unmarked and sharp.Has a remainder mark. Hardcover Used - Like New Ships fast! 2017First Edition

Item Condition: UsedLikeNew

Binding: Hardcover