Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive

How writers can make the best of even the worst criticism

Library Journal

Drawing on her experience as the leader of a long-running writing workshop, Cole addresses the delicate process of giving and receiving constructive criticism. She offers helpful techniques for writers who want to respond productively to one another's work, incorporate such responses into their own writing, and perhaps even run their own workshops. Though the focus is on informal settings and exchanges among friends, Cole's suggestions are useful for students and teachers as well. When discussing the revision process, Cole reminds writers to sift through the various changes suggested by peers: "You are the boss of your own story." To critiquers, she preaches kindness, citing another instructor's advice: "If I find myself frustrated or upset when I'm giving feedback, I stop, because if I don't critique with love, they won't understand what I'm trying to say." Though some points are repeated too often, as is the word feedback itself, Cole enlivens her compositional and pedagogic advice by interspersing interviews with writers on the order of Grace Paley, Khaled Hosseini, and Jennifer Cruise. These segments, along with many other portions of Toxic Feedback, can stand alone and would spur discussion in any writing group. Strongly recommended for academic libraries and public libraries supporting writers.-Leora Bersohn, doctoral student, Columbia Univ., New York Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

A professional writer and editor, JONI B. COLE is creator of the "This Day" series, including This Day: Diaries from American Women (2003) and This Day in the Life: Diaries from Women Across America (2005) and Water Cooler Diaries: Women across America Share Their Day at Work (2008). She is a writing instructor and frequent speaker at universities and writing conferences around the country, and co-founder of the Writer's Center of White River Junction, Vermont.