Views from the Loft: A Portable Writer's Workshop

Teachers, exercises, mentors, critiques, humor, and inspiration: these form the fuel all writers need when they get down to work every day. For decades the Loft Literary Center has provided this fuel to an enormous community of writers. Views from the Loft brings together the collected wisdom of that community — its authors, students, and editors — giving anyone the tools and inspiration necessary to thrive in the writing life. A who’s who of writers on writing ranging from the National Book Award–winning poet Mark Doty to Newbery medal–winning children’s author Kate DiCamillo, and touching on issues as delicate as the representation of family in memoir and as hilarious as a “sad-epiphany poem” mad lib for frustrated poets, this book is an essential collection of crucial tips and challenging questions for everyone who puts pen to page. The essays and interviews in this book include superstar writers like Rick Bass, Michael Cunningham, Grace Paley, Susan Power, Susan Straight, Marilyn Hacker, and many, many more.

Teachers, exercises, mentors, critiques, humor, and inspiration: these form the fuel all writers need when they get down to work every day. For decades the Loft Literary Center has provided this fuel to an enormous community of writers. Views from the Loft brings together the collected wisdom of that community — its authors, students, and editors — giving anyone the tools and inspiration necessary to thrive in the writing life. A who’s who of writers on writing ranging from the National Book Award–winning poet Mark Doty to Newbery medal–winning children’s author Kate DiCamillo, and touching on issues as delicate as the representation of family in memoir and as hilarious as a “sad-epiphany poem” mad lib for frustrated poets, this book is an essential collection of crucial tips and challenging questions for everyone who puts pen to page. The essays and interviews in this book include superstar writers like Rick Bass, Michael Cunningham, Grace Paley, Susan Power, Susan Straight, Marilyn Hacker, and many, many more.

Publishers Weekly

Celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, The Loft is the largest independent literary center in the country, offering writing classes at all levels, readings and competitions, providing mentorship, and working to "support the artistic development of writers, to foster a writing community, and to build an audience for literature." Despite the book's subtitle, this is not a pocket-sized workshop, but rather a compendium of pieces by writers-some famous, some less so-loosely arranged under a series of headings: Teaching, Writing, Critique, Publication, and "Writing for Life." Like many compilations, it's a mixed bag. The interviews in particular cover familiar ground, and beginning writers hoping for practical tips should look elsewhere. Slightly more seasoned scribes will find some help and heart, notably from Katrina Vandenberg's "Some Notes on Negative Capability," which reminds writers to imagine the internal life of objects, and applies to far more than its stated topic. With essays or interviews from over 60 contributors, serious readers will enjoy getting an inside look at the processes and practices that help fill the empty page.
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