Feeling stifled by "shoulds" and yearning to find your authentic voice? Uncork your creativity with Brenda Ueland's timeless classic, "If You Want to Write." Originally published in 1938, this inspiring guide is more than just craft tips; it's a passionate manifesto for artistic independence. Ueland, a mentor to writers like Anaïs Nin and Flannery O'Connor, believes everyone has a unique story to tell and urges you to silence self-doubt and embrace...

Cindy Sella struggles with writer's block and a lawsuit by her unscrupulous former agent, L. Bass Hess, who is targeted by bumbling hitmen Candy and Karl's zany efforts to drive him out of New York City.

"A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry guides young poets toward a deeper understanding of how poetry can function in their lives, while also introducing the art in an exciting new way. Structuring the presentation from life toward art, Orr urges poets to 'turn worlds into words' and then give those words a dramatic structure. Using such poems as Theodore Roethke's 'My Papa's Waltz' and Robert Hayden's 'Those Winter Sundays, ' the Primer encourages...

"Write for Your Life is a guide for those who don't, won't, or think they can't write, what Anna Quindlen calls 'civilians.' Using examples past, present and future--from Anne Frank to Toni Morrison to members of her own family--Quindlen makes vivid all the ways in which writing connects us, to ourselves and to those we cherish. From love letters written after World War II to journal reflections from nurses and doctors today, and using her personal...

"A world straight from the pages of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel . . . An extraordinary story about coming of age . . . and discovering who you are." —Parade
Rescued from a Dumpster on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, a discarded diary brings to life the glamorous, forgotten world of an extraordinary young woman . . .
Opening the tarnished brass lock of a red leather diary found in the basement of a New York City apartment...

A series of linked essays in praise of reading and writing, with subjects running from ghost stories to comic books, Sherlock Holmes to Cormac McCarthy. Throughout, Chabon energetically argues for a return to the thrilling, chilling origins of storytelling, rejecting the false walls around "serious" literature in favor of a wide-ranging affection.

In a modern-day pirate story, ambitious documentary filmmaker Dara Barr and her right-hand man, Xavier LeBo, a seventy-two-year-old African American seafarer, get more than they bargained for on the Horn of Africa.