The Poets & Writers Complete Guide to Being a Writer

The Poets & Writers Complete Guide to Being a Writer PDF

Author: Kevin Larimer

Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster

Published: 2020-04-07

Total Pages: 496

ISBN-13: 1982123079

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The definitive source of information, insight, and advice for creative writers, from the nation’s largest and most trusted organization for writers, Poets & Writers. For half a century, writers at every stage of their careers have turned to the literary nonprofit organization Poets & Writers and its award-winning magazine for resources to foster their professional development, from writing prompts and tips on technique to informative interviews with published authors, literary agents, and editors. But never before has Poets & Writers marshaled its fifty years’ worth of knowledge to create an authoritative guide for writers that answers every imaginable question about craft and career—until now. Here is the writing bible for authors of all genres and forms, covering topics such as how to: -Harness your imagination and jump-start your creativity -Develop your work from initial idea to final draft -Find a supportive and inspiring writing community to sustain your career -Find the best MFA program for you -Publish your work in literary magazines and develop a platform -Research writing contests and other opportunities to support your writing life -Decide between traditional publishing and self-publishing -Find the right literary agent -Anticipate what agents look for in queries and proposals -Work successfully with an editor and your publishing team -Market yourself and your work in a digital world -Approach financial planning and taxes as a writer -And much more Written by Kevin Larimer and Mary Gannon, the two most recent editors of Poets & Writers Magazine, this book brings an unrivaled understanding of the areas in which writers seek guidance and support. Filled with insider information like sample query letters, pitch letters, lists of resources, and worksheets for calculating freelance rates, tracking submissions, and managing your taxes, the guide does more than demystify the writing life—it also provides an array of powerful tools for building a sustainable career as a writer. In addition to the wealth of insights into creativity, publishing, and promotion are first-person essays from bestselling authors, including George Saunders, Christina Baker Kline, and Ocean Vuong, as well as reading lists from award-winning writers such as Anthony Doerr, Cheryl Strayed, and Natalie Diaz. Here, at last, is the ultimate comprehensive resource that belongs on every writer’s desk.

A Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers

A Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers PDF

Author: Poets and Writers, Inc. Staff

Publisher: Poets & Writers

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 588

ISBN-13: 9780913734636

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Resource. THE DIRECTORY OF AMERICAN POETS & FICTION WRITERS is a required resource for any arts or presenting organization looking for literary readers, as well as for all publishers seeking to solicit work from the best American writers. In additon, writers can use the book to find the right writing mentor and connect with other writers. "When I directed my first arts program, [the Directory] delivered the addresses and phone numbers of writers I loved, but couldn't find. How many writers and audiences are robbed without the information between these covers?"--Cornelius Eady, co-founder and co-director, Cave Canem and author of Brutal Imagination.

Poets of Reality

Poets of Reality PDF

Author: Joseph Hillis Miller

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1965

Total Pages: 390

ISBN-13: 9780674680500

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Although many books deal individually with each of the major writers treated in Poets of Reality, none attempts through analyses of these particular men and their works, to identify the new directions taken by twentieth-century literature. J. Hillis Miller, challenging the assumption that modern poetry is merely the extension of an earlier romanticism, presents critical studies of the six central figuresâe"Joseph Conrad, W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williamsâe"who played key roles in evolving a poetry in which âeoereality comes to be present to the senses, and present in the words of the poem which ratify this possession.âe A new kind of poetry has appeared in the twentieth century, the author claims, a poetry which, growing out of romanticism and symbolism, goes far beyond it. The old generalizations about the nature and use of poetry are no longer applicable, and it is the gradual emergence of new forms, culminating in the work of Williams, that Miller traces and defines.

What Poets Are Like

What Poets Are Like PDF

Author: Gary Soto

Publisher: Sasquatch Books

Published: 2013-08-20

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 1570618755

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Gary Soto is a widely published author of children's and young adult fiction, and he is an acclaimed poet--often referred to as one of the nation's first Chicano poets. With a sharp sense of storytelling and a sly wit, What Poets Are Like is a memoir of the writing life that shares the keen observation, sense of self and humor of such writers as Sherman Alexie and Nora Ephron. In some 60 short episodes, this book captures moments of a writer's inner and public life, close moments with friends and strangers, occasional reminders of a poet's generally low place in the cultural hierarchy; time spent with cats; the curious work of writing. He tells the stories of his time spent in bookstores and recounts the glorious, then tragic, arc of Cody's Bookstore in Berkeley, ending with the author whose scheduled event fell on the day after the business shut down, but who stood outside the locked door and read aloud just the same. As all writers do, Soto suffers the slings and arrows of rejection, often from unnamed Midwest poetry journals, and seeks the solace of a friendly dog at such moments. Soto jabs at the crumbs of reward available to writers--a prize nomination here, a magazine interview there--and notes the toll they take on a frail ego. The pleasure Soto takes in the written word, a dose of comic relief plus his appreciation of the decisive moment in life make this an engaging and readable writer's confession.

American Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century

American Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century PDF

Author: Cheryl Walker

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 484

ISBN-13: 9780813517919

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This publication marks the first time in a hundred years that a wide range of nineteenth-century American women's poetry has been accessible to the general public in a single volume. Included are the humorous parodies of Phoebe Cary and Mary Weston Fordham and the stirring abolitionist poems of Lydia Sigourney, Frances Harper, Maria Lowell, and Rose Terry Cooke. Included, too, are haunting reflections on madness, drug use, and suicide of women whose lives, as Cheryl Walker explains, were often as melodramatic as the poems they composed and published. In addition to works by more than two dozen poets, the anthology includes ample headnotes about each author's life and a brief critical evaluation of her work. Walker's introduction to the volume provides valuable contextual material to help readers understand the cultural background, economic necessities, literary conventions, and personal dynamics that governed women's poetic production in the nineteenth century.

A Writing Kind of Day

A Writing Kind of Day PDF

Author: Ralph Fletcher

Publisher: Boyds Mills Press

Published: 2014-10-07

Total Pages: 61

ISBN-13: 1629792748

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It's easy to make one, lying on your back in the newest snow. You move your arms like wings. Later you forget about your creation, go inside for a mug of hot chocolate. That's when she rises from the snow takes a feathery breath, tries out her wings. So begins a poem about making a snow angel, but it might also refer to the mysterious way that a poem comes into being and takes on a life of its own. In this new collection, Ralph Fletcher shows us how you can write a poem about almost anything: a baby sister, a Venus's-flytrap, a failing grandmother, a squished squirrel, grammar homework, and more. These poems take us inside the creative process as they reveal both the playfulness and the power of poetry. More than anything, they invite us to pick up pen and paper and write some poems of your own.

A Difficult Grace

A Difficult Grace PDF

Author: Michael Ryan

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9780820322643

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“[In] preliterate societies, even those as late as ancient Greece and Anglo-Saxon England, the poet is the ideologue, historian, theologian, philosopher, TV, newspaper, Internet, and megamultiplex cinema rolled into one”--so begins Michael Ryan’s lively description of the cultural context of ancient poetry, in pointed contrast to that of poetry now. Informed by his own experience as a poet and writer, A Difficult Grace examines the lives and works of Dickinson, Yeats, Pound, Eliot, Williams, Whitman, Frost, Bishop, and Stevens (as well as other poets and writers before and since), deftly combining literary history, critical writing by the writers themselves, and Ryan's expert understanding of their work. The result is a collection of powerfully argued essays written in a style easily accessible to a wide range of readers. Attending to the difficult graces of form, structure, rhythm, and technique, Ryan illuminates the unifying subject of his book: the vocation of the poet and the writer in the contemporary world. This is an essential book for both writers and readers.

The Lake Poets

The Lake Poets PDF

Author: Gavin D. Smith

Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited

Published: 2010-05-15

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 1445625857

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A delightful and comprehensive look at the lives and works of some of England's finest poets.

The Sounds of Poetry

The Sounds of Poetry PDF

Author: Robert Pinsky

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2014-08-19

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 1466878495

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The Poet Laureate's clear and entertaining account of how poetry works. "Poetry is a vocal, which is to say a bodily, art," Robert Pinsky declares in The Sounds of Poetry. "The medium of poetry is the human body: the column of air inside the chest, shaped into signifying sounds in the larynx and the mouth. In this sense, poetry is as physical or bodily an art as dancing." As Poet Laureate, Pinsky is one of America's best spokesmen for poetry. In this fascinating book, he explains how poets use the "technology" of poetry--its sounds--to create works of art that are "performed" in us when we read them aloud. He devotes brief, informative chapters to accent and duration, syntax and line, like and unlike sounds, blank and free verse. He cites examples from the work of fifty different poets--from Shakespeare, Donne, and Herbert to W. C. Williams, Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, C. K. Williams, Louise Glück, and Frank Bidart. This ideal introductory volume belongs in the library of every poet and student of poetry.