What do you think?
Rate this book
The Practical Writer: From Inspiration to Publication
Poets & Writers Magazine presents the one book that every writer needs on the journey from the writing studio to publication. An essential volume from an organization renowned for providing reliable advice, The Practical Writer is filled with valuable information that will help emerging writers make intelligent choices and professional decisions at every stage of their careers. Filled with the insights and expertise of authors and other publishing insiders, it covers a range of topics: revising a manuscript, choosing a title, applying for grants, conducting research, evaluating an agent, understanding contracts, working with an editor, finding a literary community, promoting a book, and much more. With The Practical Writer, writers will know how to make the most of every aspect of their journey.
366 pages, Paperback
First published March 2, 2004
3 people are currently reading
109 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 13, 2008
I don't buy books about the writer's craft any more. Not since I picked up The Practical Writer.
Edited by Therese Eibe and Mary Gannon in conjunction with the staff of Poets and Writers Magazine, this volume covers everything from conceiving original ideas to successfully placing the finished manuscript with a publisher. It's not a 'how-to' manual with carefully planned 'Point A to Point B' steps, but rather a series of essays that help both emerging and veteran writers make intelligent and informed choices at every stage of their project. Among the topics covered are choosing the perfect title, submission strategy and protocol, getting low-cost publicity for a small press title, digital marketing, and cultivating your local booksellers.
Some essays provided more insight than instruction, and these were the ones that I found myself mulling over long after I finished reading the book. Helen Benedict's "Fiction vs. Nonfiction: Wherein Lies the Truth?" was one of them. Like many nonfiction writers, I shied away from fiction and literature in favor of immersing myself in works of history, current events, true crime, etc. I saw no value in imaginary worlds and people unless I was looking for an escape, and even then, I preferred a good history volume as a type of retreat. Benedict argues that even nonfiction has its limits in exposing and depicting the truth: interview subjects color their stories, authors are wary of injuring innocent parties, and everyone fears a lawsuit if they're completely honest in print about a contentious issue. With fiction, writers are free to expose unpalatable truths via imaginary characters, as Vladimir Nabokov did with his obsessed child-lover Humbert Humbert in Lolita. History abounds with examples of literature leading to social change: Uncle Tom's Cabin shone a harsh glare on the morality of slavery, Charles Dickens helped the cause of the poor, and Theodore Dreiser humanized the prostitute, the unwed mother, and other figures of universal derision during his day.
Another essay that stayed with me was Robert McDowell's "Publicity for Your Small Press Title". Like me, McDowell believes that the author is a crucial part of a book's success. After his poetry volume On Foot, In Flames was released, he spent nine days driving through eastern Oregon and Washington to promote his book. He read before twenty-two classes of high and middle school pupils, gave readings at local libraries, and even presented his work at a senior's home in Fossil, Oregon. Only three people showed up at a reading scheduled at a small-town hotel, but guests entering the lobby would stop and listen. McDowell only sold one book that night, but as he put it, "Even though the author in me could have easily retreated to a humiliating place, the marketer and proselytizer in me was proud of that sale. My poetry had just taken one more small step out into the world."
The Practical Writer belongs with each year's Writer's Market on any serious author's bookshelf. The latter points to doors, the former helps push them open and make the most of the opportunities presented.
Edited by Therese Eibe and Mary Gannon in conjunction with the staff of Poets and Writers Magazine, this volume covers everything from conceiving original ideas to successfully placing the finished manuscript with a publisher. It's not a 'how-to' manual with carefully planned 'Point A to Point B' steps, but rather a series of essays that help both emerging and veteran writers make intelligent and informed choices at every stage of their project. Among the topics covered are choosing the perfect title, submission strategy and protocol, getting low-cost publicity for a small press title, digital marketing, and cultivating your local booksellers.
Some essays provided more insight than instruction, and these were the ones that I found myself mulling over long after I finished reading the book. Helen Benedict's "Fiction vs. Nonfiction: Wherein Lies the Truth?" was one of them. Like many nonfiction writers, I shied away from fiction and literature in favor of immersing myself in works of history, current events, true crime, etc. I saw no value in imaginary worlds and people unless I was looking for an escape, and even then, I preferred a good history volume as a type of retreat. Benedict argues that even nonfiction has its limits in exposing and depicting the truth: interview subjects color their stories, authors are wary of injuring innocent parties, and everyone fears a lawsuit if they're completely honest in print about a contentious issue. With fiction, writers are free to expose unpalatable truths via imaginary characters, as Vladimir Nabokov did with his obsessed child-lover Humbert Humbert in Lolita. History abounds with examples of literature leading to social change: Uncle Tom's Cabin shone a harsh glare on the morality of slavery, Charles Dickens helped the cause of the poor, and Theodore Dreiser humanized the prostitute, the unwed mother, and other figures of universal derision during his day.
Another essay that stayed with me was Robert McDowell's "Publicity for Your Small Press Title". Like me, McDowell believes that the author is a crucial part of a book's success. After his poetry volume On Foot, In Flames was released, he spent nine days driving through eastern Oregon and Washington to promote his book. He read before twenty-two classes of high and middle school pupils, gave readings at local libraries, and even presented his work at a senior's home in Fossil, Oregon. Only three people showed up at a reading scheduled at a small-town hotel, but guests entering the lobby would stop and listen. McDowell only sold one book that night, but as he put it, "Even though the author in me could have easily retreated to a humiliating place, the marketer and proselytizer in me was proud of that sale. My poetry had just taken one more small step out into the world."
The Practical Writer belongs with each year's Writer's Market on any serious author's bookshelf. The latter points to doors, the former helps push them open and make the most of the opportunities presented.
July 6, 2011
From the PFS Book Club...
What I Liked: Most often, writing books feature articles and advice only on one of two things: either getting published or the act of writing itself. This book, however, manages to cover a variety of topics, and then introduce several new topics that aren't as frequently developed. Writing is not an easy field to be a part of, and I think this book does a good job of balancing lofty writing goals with sensible, down-to-earth advice about actually making a go of it.
As with every collection, not every article can be as good as the next. But since this collection is pulled from several years worth of the magazine issues, it's actually nearly consistently good. There was only one big exception where I pretty much started to skim read the article just to finish it. The articles (again, since it's coming from a magazine) are also all very short, making this book easy to read. The appendices were a nice addition, but they actually take up about 1/3 of the book, so if you're expecting a lot of writing for your money, then this isn't your book.
What I Didn't Like: There simply didn't seem to be enough here. Poets & Writers seemed to say, "Hey, let's take our articles and make a book!" and that was the point of the book. There's no overreaching idea, nothing tethering the collection together. As a writer and publishing professional myself, there was only one article that really even presented information that I didn't already know (the one on independent bookstore owning).
Also, while I love the variety in this book and it covers topics that young writers definitely need to hear and most often don't hear before it's too late, it didn't really go in-depth enough for me. All the articles skimmed the surface issues and sometimes even failed to point out the common pitfalls. If you're going to do a book, at least slow down a bit and actually give the reader some more. Otherwise, it's like reading a magazine without all the pretty pictures.
Last Thought: A big collection of ideas that every writer needs to hear but also a collection that fails to hold it together or provide anything new.
What I Liked: Most often, writing books feature articles and advice only on one of two things: either getting published or the act of writing itself. This book, however, manages to cover a variety of topics, and then introduce several new topics that aren't as frequently developed. Writing is not an easy field to be a part of, and I think this book does a good job of balancing lofty writing goals with sensible, down-to-earth advice about actually making a go of it.
As with every collection, not every article can be as good as the next. But since this collection is pulled from several years worth of the magazine issues, it's actually nearly consistently good. There was only one big exception where I pretty much started to skim read the article just to finish it. The articles (again, since it's coming from a magazine) are also all very short, making this book easy to read. The appendices were a nice addition, but they actually take up about 1/3 of the book, so if you're expecting a lot of writing for your money, then this isn't your book.
What I Didn't Like: There simply didn't seem to be enough here. Poets & Writers seemed to say, "Hey, let's take our articles and make a book!" and that was the point of the book. There's no overreaching idea, nothing tethering the collection together. As a writer and publishing professional myself, there was only one article that really even presented information that I didn't already know (the one on independent bookstore owning).
Also, while I love the variety in this book and it covers topics that young writers definitely need to hear and most often don't hear before it's too late, it didn't really go in-depth enough for me. All the articles skimmed the surface issues and sometimes even failed to point out the common pitfalls. If you're going to do a book, at least slow down a bit and actually give the reader some more. Otherwise, it's like reading a magazine without all the pretty pictures.
Last Thought: A big collection of ideas that every writer needs to hear but also a collection that fails to hold it together or provide anything new.
January 26, 2015
“Fiction vs. Nonfiction: Wherein Lies the truth?” by Helen Benedict
p.3 – [Fiction reveals] subjective truth of what it means to be a human being in the world. […] This sort of truth has always been the subject matter of fiction, because it is hidden from the public eye. It lies in secrets and private experiences.
p.4 – Fiction steps in where the ordinary articulateness of human beings fails. It gives the human soul a voice.
p.8 – Novelists never stop reporting. They spend their lives observing, watching, analyzing.
“The Lingerie Theory of Narration” by Julie Checkoway
p.26 – Clear description – of setting, of character – is fundamental to good fiction, and becoming as concrete as possible in description should be a writer’s first goal. […] One needs only to describe a house once, as long as nothing has changed the second time we visit it.
p.28 – Fiction is also a frozen moment in time. It generally catches characters in the middle of their lives, just when their habitual way of being in the world is about to give way. The playwright Edward Albee once said that the beginning of a piece of fiction is like the opening of a curtain on a scene that was already in progress before the curtain parted… […] The challenge facing the story writer is to imply a great deal about what happened before through exposition and implication and to imply, as well, what may happen once the curtain closes again.
p.29 – if you want to open the story with material about the character’s deep past, then there has to be an important relationship between that past and what is about to happen in the action of the story.
p.30 – The problem with apocalyptic writing (the story in which the car actually crashes, the house burns to the ground before your eyes, the relationship completely falls apart) is that it is filmic rather than literary and, therefore, moves away from the primary purpose of fiction – to let us see into the hidden life of things.
p.3 – [Fiction reveals] subjective truth of what it means to be a human being in the world. […] This sort of truth has always been the subject matter of fiction, because it is hidden from the public eye. It lies in secrets and private experiences.
p.4 – Fiction steps in where the ordinary articulateness of human beings fails. It gives the human soul a voice.
p.8 – Novelists never stop reporting. They spend their lives observing, watching, analyzing.
“The Lingerie Theory of Narration” by Julie Checkoway
p.26 – Clear description – of setting, of character – is fundamental to good fiction, and becoming as concrete as possible in description should be a writer’s first goal. […] One needs only to describe a house once, as long as nothing has changed the second time we visit it.
p.28 – Fiction is also a frozen moment in time. It generally catches characters in the middle of their lives, just when their habitual way of being in the world is about to give way. The playwright Edward Albee once said that the beginning of a piece of fiction is like the opening of a curtain on a scene that was already in progress before the curtain parted… […] The challenge facing the story writer is to imply a great deal about what happened before through exposition and implication and to imply, as well, what may happen once the curtain closes again.
p.29 – if you want to open the story with material about the character’s deep past, then there has to be an important relationship between that past and what is about to happen in the action of the story.
p.30 – The problem with apocalyptic writing (the story in which the car actually crashes, the house burns to the ground before your eyes, the relationship completely falls apart) is that it is filmic rather than literary and, therefore, moves away from the primary purpose of fiction – to let us see into the hidden life of things.
July 22, 2013
I have picked up several of these writing books that turn out to be compilations of essays. Every one of them in this book starts out with the same *clever* quip... "So you want to (insert essay topic)". Seriously thought an editor would have had that changed up.
April 19, 2015
This is a great reference for a variety of questions about the entire writing process, from the actual writing to publishing to teaching. It also has a large index including a list of grants and awards, conferences, and resources.
December 8, 2007
A Reprints of many P&W articles; handy (except I read a bunch already!)
May 16, 2011
Absolutely fabulous book, masses of important practical information.
The best book on writing for real authors yet.
The best book on writing for real authors yet.
January 6, 2012
Read this book not to learn how to write a novel, short story, poem, or article, but what to do after you've finished. I found the article on choosing titles especially helpful.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews